1. I was up just before 5:30 this morning and fired up the Vizio to watch two quarterfinal tennis matches from Wimbledon. The first match went pretty much by the book. Novak Djokovic pummeled Marton Fucsovics early on, and took a 5-0 lead in the first set. Fucsovics didn't relent, though, and started to play better, but lost that set 3-6. The match was slightly for evenly played in the second set, but Djokovic prevailed, 6-4 and won the final set by the same score.
Djokovic looks unbeatable. Every aspect of his game is in top form, he's as fit as I've ever seen any athlete in any sport, and his will and determination strike me as superior to all the other players. By dispatching Fucsovics efficiently today, he didn't overly tax himself and should be well rested and will be the clear favorite to win his semifinal match against Denis Shapovalov.
The second quarterfinal match featured Roger Federer against Hubert Hurkacz.
Whereas Novak Djokovic is at or near the peak of his athletic prowess, Roger Federer, who will turn 40 on August 8th, is in decline. I doubt anyone would argue that Federer is among the most elegant men ever to play tennis and is the game's most trusted, admired, and respected player. It's very difficult for those of us who love tennis to come to grips with the fact that Federer's days as an elite player are, thanks to the inevitable effects of aging, numbered.
But, in his last two matches at Wimbledon, Federer had played well and some of us even hoped that since he and Djokovic were playing on opposite sides of the tournament's bracket, that they might meet in the tournament's final match.
It was not to be.
Hubert Hurkacz was very much the fresher, more powerful, and better player today.
He wore Federer out. It appeared that the matches Federer played up to this point took more out of him than we fans might have thought. Today, Federer was a tad bit slow, hit too many shots off balance, made bad decisions about the shot to hit at key moments, and, in one particularly painful moment, looked awkward as he stumbled trying to set himself for a smash and badly muffed what would have been an easy point.
Federer lost the first two sets 3-6, 6-7. In the third set, the unimaginable happened. Federer didn't win a single game. Hurkacz overpowered Federer to win the third set 6-0. Watching Federer pack up his equipment and stride to the locker room, stopping to wave to the spectators, a generous gesture of gratitude, I didn't wonder so much if Roger Federer would ever win another major -- I wondered if, after this year's U.S. Open (given he plays), we'll ever see him play any more major tournaments.
Time is cruel.
2. On Facebook, a friend of mine, Judy, asked her friends to recommend a movie she could watch that wouldn't demand a lot of mental energy -- she posted that her brain was tired.
I read through the recommendation's people made. I'm always on the lookout for movies I haven't heard of that sound good.
One of my friends, Mary, recommended the documentary, Bikes of Wrath. My first thought was that this sounded like a motorcycle gang film -- something along the lines of Sons of Anarchy.
But, I thought, Mary wouldn't be drawn to this subject matter, so I looked up the title and AHA! is it ever not a motorcycle gang documentary.
No, this is the story of five Australian men who love John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath and decided to follow the route of the Joad family, riding bicycles from Sallisaw, OK to Bakersfield, CA over a month's time.
I don't want to give away what happened, and I hope what I'm about to write isn't revealing too much.
I was moved to tears several times as this movie developed and I loved that these guys, who shot the movie themselves, asked people they met on their journey to read aloud passages from The Grapes of Wrath. It brought to mind a project I want to return to where everyday people in Alabama were videotaped reading poetry by Walt Whitman. Hearing Whitman's poetry and Steinbeck's prose read in this way brought both writers' work alive to me in fresh and moving ways -- really moving ways.
As far as what else in this movie moved me, my keyboard is sealed. I wouldn't have wanted to know what was going to happen in this movie before I watched it and I'm not giving anything else away.
I'll just say that I'm grateful to Judy's tired brain and Mary's superb recommendation. I'm not sure I would have found this movie, on Amazon Prime, had Judy not posted her request.
By the way, I don't know what movie Judy ended up watching with her tired brain.
I'm really glad my brain wasn't tired, though, when I watched Bikes of Wrath this evening!
3. After watching Bikes of Wrath, I popped open the bottle of Iron Goat's Rubus that Patrick and Meagan brought me from Spokane. I only drank one glass and hope the stopper I put in the bottle will preserve its life and freshness for a few days. Rubus is a raspberry sour, a tart sour beer with a pleasing dry finish.
I closed out the evening by rewatching the episode of VH1's Classic Albums that focused on Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Elton John's music has been getting to me in new and stronger ways lately and I remembered that this program enhanced my appreciation of both Elton John and Bernie Taupin when I first watched it.
It did so again tonight.
I especially enjoyed listening to Bernie Taupin talk about his ways of writing songs, of how much he drew upon vivid memories from his youth growing up in Lincolnshire and of how he focused his powers on creating vivid images in his songs. Many of those lyrics had little to do with Elton John's experiences in life and, yet, Elton John embraced those songs, gave them superb melodies, and sang them as if they were his own.
Maybe everyone knows this about Taupin/John, but, as is often the case, I've arrived a bit late to this party. Sure glad I came.
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